Failure to Join Tool on U.S. Tour

After a sold out reunion show at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre (Feb 13), Failure have lined up a series of tour dates with Tool.

Singer Ken Andrews posted a Facebook message today (Feb 28) announcing the news. “We’ll be joining Tool on their upcoming tour (U.S. dates between March 9 in Reno and March 27 in Phoenix), marking the first time Failure & Tool have toured together since 1996. Looking forward to hanging with my old mates, but more importantly, it’s a chance for people to hear two bands that still really care about the long form album format and what you can do that amount of time artistically, versus three-and-a-half minute singles.”

This isn’t the first time on the road with Tool. Failure actually opened for them in 1992 and again in ’94.

Although many Failure consider the themselves rooted in hard rock, their music didn’t always satisfy Tool fans who were becoming increasingly metal-focused. During an interview with Radio.com, band founders Ken Andrews and guitarist Greg Edwards recalled the two tours.

“We toured with them in Europe, sort of an extended tour of France,” Edwards explained. “That was right as they were breaking big in the U.S. In Europe they had just a few fans here and there. We were playing small clubs. When they came back to the U.S. it was all over. They had the song ‘Sober.’”

“In the very beginning when we toured with them their fan base was kind of more open to different kinds of stuff,” Andrews recalled. “As time went on I think their fan base distilled into a more metal-leaning people. So some of the later shows that we opened for them the crowd was like, ‘Where’s Tool?’”

The band later toured with Tool and the Flaming Lips. “That was cool,” recalled Andrews. But Edwards recalls the tour a little differently adding, “A lot of the serious Tool fans were like ‘What the f*** are these two first bands?’But it was great. I loved that tour.”